Sohut's Protection: A Sci-fi Alien Romance (Riv's Sanctuary Book 2) A.G. Wilde (best way to read an ebook TXT) 📖

over the alien…Sohut’s face. He wasn’t exactly like she thought he’d be.

He was…softer…nicer?

Don’t get her wrong, he was all hard edges. But his personality…he was surprising her with every second that she was in his presence.

When she’d seen him hop from the orcs’ vehicle and head into the jungle, she hadn’t expected him to be like this.

He was so…different.

The muscles in his arms flexed even with him just turning the spindle in his hands.

“Your daran…” he said. The word didn’t translate in her head.

“Daran?” she asked.

“Yes. The male who begot you.”

“Oh, my dad. Yea. He used to take me camping all the time.” She paused, memories of time spent with her father resurfacing. What she wouldn’t do to see him again.

“He was all I had. My mother never wanted me. She threatened to throw me away.” She huffed out a laugh. Funny she could talk about it so easily now. As a child, she’d felt like a reject because of that one fact. And that’s why her father, the great Thomas Barlow, had worked so hard to make her tough.

She wasn’t a victim.

She was a survivor.

“Dad taught me everything he knew.” She fingered another knot in her hair, working her way through the strands till they were straight again. “He taught me how to make a shelter, taught me how to find food, taught me how to make a fire from nothing. He taught me everything I needed to know to survive.”

As if he knew he’d leave me one day and I’d need them in this exact situation.

She didn’t say the last sentence but when the faraway look left her eyes, when the glaze of unexpected tears drained away from her vision, she realized the alien was looking at her with a strange look in his luminous green eyes.

“He was everything a child like me needed,” she finished.

A sort of wry smile twisted the alien’s lips. “Must be nice,” he said.

The words sounded bitter despite that his facial muscles displayed no emotion.

As a matter of fact, it was almost as if he had completely closed off suddenly.

For a beat, he just stared at her, his eyes having a faraway look—the kind you got when you were looking at something that wasn’t there…remembering something.

And then he sniffed.

Whatever he smelled pulled him straight from wherever he’d gone and his eyes widened slightly.

With a deliberate pull of his nostrils, so hard the little bumps that ran down his septum bunched up a little, he inhaled again.

“Slizz,” he said, his shoulders stiffening.

Then she heard it—the sound of his claws protracting.

It happened so fast. One second, there was movement at the mouth of the cave and then something flew in so fast she had little time to jump to her feet.

A screech caught in the air as the blur materialized into Wawa.

Wawa!

His claws dug into Sohut’s back, into the wounds there that hadn’t fully healed yet and Sohut grunted in pain as he reached back, his entire palm closing around Wawa’s small body.

Wawa screeched again—a sound she’d never heard him make before—and dug his claws deeper, his mouth opening to show a terror she never knew he even had.

Rows upon rows of sharp teeth were exposed to the morning light.

Cleo’s heart lodged into her throat as her brain caught up with what was happening.

“Wawa!” she shouted, advancing toward them, but Sohut stumbled back instead, out of her reach.

Slamming his back into the cave wall, he tried to put Wawa out of business and Cleo realized at that moment that she was feeling two things.

1. She didn’t want Wawa to hurt the alien who’d appeared in her solitary life like a whirlwind.

2. She didn’t want Sohut to hurt Wawa either.

“Stop!” she shouted to Sohut. “He thinks you’re an intruder. I’ll get him off you.”

The alien looked at her as if she belonged in an asylum. His eyes were the widest she’d ever seen them before.

“It’s a phekking slizz. I knew I smelled it but I hadn’t been sure.” He grunted as Wawa kept harming him and Cleo gulped, the thought of those teeth she’d seen sinking in the alien’s back making her rush toward them.

But the alien moved out of the way again, keeping his back away from her as he tried to dislodge Wawa from his skin.

She saw enough to tell he had one hand around Wawa’s skinny body and the other squeezing Wawa’s neck but Wawa’s claws were dug into his back, not letting go.

One of them was going to win and the other was going to be badly hurt if she didn’t intervene.

She advanced again and the alien took another step backward. They were walking in circles. Every time she moved forward, he’d go around her.

“This creature is dangerous. More dangerous than you realize. Stay away. One bite and it will kill you with its venom. You’ll die in seconds.”

Wawa?

The same sweet animal she’d slept beside for over a year?

No way he was as dangerous as Sohut thought…but then again, she’d never seen Wawa act like he was now…and she’d never seen those teeth.

It was as if the teeth had been hidden until he’d needed them just now.

“Wawa,” she cooed mid-Wawa-screech and the screech seemed to die a little at the end. He was listening to her.

“Wawa…let the nice alien go. He won’t hurt you.” She said the last four words while looking at Sohut but he was still looking at her as if she was insane.

“You named it?” He almost spat the words. “You named this…this little murderer? You think it’s your friend?”

“It—he is my friend. He’s been my only friend for over a year. If—”

“Phek me…” Then his nose scrunched up. “Raxu knows, it phekking stinks!”

The way he said it, she’d have laughed if he didn’t have an animal intent on ripping him apart fastened to his back.

Cooing, she stepped to the side so she could make eye contact with Wawa.

“Wawa,” she cooed, and the animal looked at her.

Cleo’s hand flew to cover her mouth in shock.

Wawa’s big brown eyes were